Drive Expansion and Drive Upgrade FAQ

More recently manufactured WD GP drives including the WD10EARS no longer require the Intellipark adjustment to be made; generally it appears those drives manufactured after the first week in August this year or so. That said, it's difficult to say what the drive's manufacture date might be if ordered from Dell or anywhere else. Until all of the older WD GP drives (that required the adjustment) are flushed through the system they shouldn't be included in the recommended drive list.http://bit.ly/5QD8FS

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If I order the WD10EARS is the manufacture date shown somewhere on the drive so I could return it if it is part of the older batch?

I used WinMFS to make a backup of THD, tcd652, and the size was 440 megs, with only 1 show left in the recently deleted folder, original drive, and ver 11.0h. Plus, I burned the backup onto a CD, if anything happens to the drive, I still got a backup. Time it took to backup, for me that is, was just about 1 min.

Do you have alot of recordings on that Tivo drive? Does 'Never booted' means you have a brand new box?

I used WinMFS to make a backup of THD, tcd652, and the size was 440 megs, with only 1 show left in the recently deleted folder, original drive, and ver 11.0h. Plus, I burned the backup onto a CD, if anything happens to the drive, I still got a backup. Time it took to backup, for me that is, was just about 1 min.

Do you have alot of recordings on that Tivo drive? Does 'Never booted' means you have a brand new box?

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I removed it before powering it up the first time, used it to make my 1TB drive via backup ... | restore. It should be the pristine factory build on there.

I tried again with -f 8888 and the initial MB count was the same 3463, so I aborted that one. WIthout the -f option entirely, it works fine and finishes at about 500M. I'm trying -f6888 now and the MB count looks low enough that it should be below that 2G mark.

It will work, but unless you already own it there wouldn't really be any advantage (at least in a TiVo application) over the WD GP drive. If this is the one you're talking about it's a 7200 RPM drive that runs a bit hotter and is noisier than the WD GP drives costs more than the one on sale at Dell too. The only advantage might be that it doesn't have the Intellipark feature so there'd be no need to tweak it. I say "might" because the newer WD GP drives (post August 1 or so) no longer have to have the Intellipark feature tweaked.

Just ordered and received a WD10EVDS from Amazon fro my TivoHD. Manufacture date is April 26 2010. I assume I will have to run widdle?

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Probably but you never know. Might be worth trying w/o it and see what happens. I know it's a big ask and another step if it doesn't work, but for purely selfish reasons I for one would like to know plus the additional data point will be beneficial to those that follow. But if you don't want to help your fellow TCF members that's okay don't worry about us we'll be fine.

As explained earlier most folks are successfully using non-AV, low RPM hard drives simply because TiVo can't take advantage of a majority of the AV dedicated features the manufacturers build in and AV drives cost more about 20 to 30% more depending on the drive.

After years of upgrading TiVo's with both types there's no empirical evidence one is better than the other, other than acoustics the AV dedicated drives are delivered with the AAM set to 128. A few minutes work using a simple program will allow anyone to adjust the acoustics on a "stock" drive (from most manufacturers with the exception of Seagate) to the same.

Ease of use? Agreed, pay some more, get an A/V dedicated drive and there's one less step in the upgrade process.

As explained earlier most folks are successfully using non-AV, low RPM hard drives simply because TiVo can't take advantage of a majority of the AV dedicated features the manufacturers build in and AV drives cost more about 20 to 30% more depending on the drive.

After years of upgrading TiVo's with both types there's no empirical evidence one is better than the other, other than acoustics the AV dedicated drives are delivered with the AAM set to 128. A few minutes work using a simple program will allow anyone to adjust the acoustics on a "stock" drive (from most manufacturers with the exception of Seagate) to the same.

Ease of use? Agreed, pay some more, get an A/V dedicated drive and there's one less step in the upgrade process.

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What do you mean TiVo can't take advantage of the AV features? What features, and why not?

What do you mean TiVo can't take advantage of the AV features? What features, and why not?

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AV-specific features in the firmware allow such things as reads without error recovery; since a given read is known to be video data, it's more important to not hold up the read than it is to try to re-read the data over and over to get a good read (if it ever happens).

TiVo simply does not need or utilize any of these extra features that exist in AV drive firmware.

Though frankly it'd be nice if they could use it if it existed; it's certainly more user-friendly to see some garbled data now and then as a hard drive fails than it is to watch the TiVo lock up and reboot.

TiVo simply does not need or utilize any of these extra features that exist in AV drive firmware.

Though frankly it'd be nice if they could use it if it existed; it's certainly more user-friendly to see some garbled data now and then as a hard drive fails than it is to watch the TiVo lock up and reboot.

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That, of course is a shame. The problem is, of course, that the drive can indicate an error, but it is up to the host software (windows, Linux, TIVO, or IBM MVS) to decide what to do about the "error". In the case of Computer data like your checking account data, it better be correct. However, the problem with TIVO is that it is OK to just skip a bad sector while playing a show that was recorded. Heck, you would think it is the cable company anyway ! But the lockup is NOT OK. I am surprised that TiVo did not make its OS better than that! It is too bad that TIVO did not include software (a KS XX) that could be run to copy the "bad" show to another location without the bad sector and then have a hidden directory of bad sectors. That way, that sector(s) would never be used again. They could even have a KS to scan the whole drive and mark bad sectors. I bet a whole lot of TiVo's would be saved that way! How many times have we seen people come here to replace their HDD because all is OK except if they try to play a show they had recorded (or is that taped) everything would freeze!

It is too bad that TIVO did not include software (a KS XX) that could be run to copy the "bad" show to another location without the bad sector and then have a hidden directory of bad sectors. That way, that sector(s) would never be used again. They could even have a KS to scan the whole drive and mark bad sectors.

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Actually if I'm reading what you're suggesting right (and it's been a long week, so some slack may be in order) Kickstart 57/MFS assert does in fact mark and isolate bad sectors along with its other tasks. It would be great if it handled the other things you suggest though.

Cross posting - posting the same questions on multiple threads is frowned upon by the TCF Moderators and is just bad form. I and others took the time to answer your posts, but in the future it's best to post once, wait for an answer. New folks get a pass.

Actually if I'm reading what you're suggesting right (and it's been a long week, so some slack may be in order) Kickstart 57/MFS assert does in fact mark and isolate bad sectors along with its other tasks. It would be great if it handled the other things you suggest though.

Enjoying the sun?

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Well, we just got back from Westfir/Oakridge and Silverton. I tell you, besides the darn rain it was scary in Oakridge before they shot that guy...near where we were staying in our RV, too! Police were all over!!

Well, we just got back from Westfir/Oakridge and Silverton. I tell you, besides the darn rain it was scary in Oakridge before they shot that guy...near where we were staying in our RV, too! Police were all over!!